Did the crowd chant “Chowkidar chor hai” at an IPL match in the light of the loudspeaker controversy?

The viral video has no relation to the ongoing loudspeaker controversy. The incident dates back to 2019 when the crowd chanted slogans of “Chowkidar Chor hai” as a counter-response to chants of “Modi Modi”.

The statement by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray about removing loudspeakers from mosques by May 3 has caused quite a furore in the Maharashtra’s political landscape. Thackeray had also exhorted MNS activists to play Hanuman Chalisa if the government or the Muslim community did not remove loudspeakers within the deadline issued by him.

Amidst this, a video showing audience wearing Delhi’s IPL jersey raising slogans of “chowkidaar chor hai” in a stadium is widely circulating on social media. Users also claimed that now loudspeakers have been banned in the stadium of IPL cricket match, which is why the audience are cheering slogans without a speaker.

“Chowkidaar chor hai” is a Hindi slogan used by the Indian National Congress (INC) in its election campaign for the 2019 Indian general election. The then INC president, Rahul Gandhi coined the slogan targeting Prime Minister Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleging the later indulged in corruption in the Rafale deal. 

The caption of the post “Now even in IPL cricket match without loud speaker, you will get goose bumps.”

(Hindi- अब तो IPL क्रिकेट मैच में भी बिना लाऊड स्पीकर के बोला जा रहा है | रोंगटे खड़े हो जायेंगे |)

Facebook Post | Archive Link 

Fact Check- 

We started our investigation by running a keywords search on Google, whose results led us to the same video published in April 2019 on Facebook. The caption of the post mentions, “Chowkidaar Chor Hai slogans raised during IPL match.”

This makes it clear that the viral video is not a recent one and it has no relation with the ongoing loudspeaker controversy.

We also came across a news report by BBC on 27 March 2019 that stated that the video shows the IPL match between Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals at Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur where the crowd has raised slogans of ‘chowkidaar chor hai’. The report stated that the slogans were raised as a counter reply to the audience raising “Modi Modi” slogans.

We found a 5-hour recording of the IPL match uploaded on Hotstar, we can hear the slogan of chowkidar chor hai at the timestamp of 2:30:00 in the background. You can watch the entire match here.

Conclusion- 

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the video on social media shared out of context. The viral video has no relation to the ongoing loudspeaker controversy. The incident dates back to 2019 when the crowd chanted slogans of “Chowkidar Chor hai” as a counter-response to chants of “Modi Modi”.